How mainstream party strategies (de-)legitimize radical right parties

Over the past years and decades, radical right parties (RRPs) have become part of almost all Western European party systems. Mainstream parties’ responses to their radical right challengers have varied considerably. Yet, we know little about the impact of these responses on citizens’ evaluations of RRPs. In this study, I argue that mainstream parties’ response strategies shape citizens’ evaluations of RRPs on a wide range of variables – such as tolerance judgements, perceptions of democraticness, and vote choice. Using an experimental approach, I investigate the effects on citizens of two response strategies in this paper. First, a scenario in which the mainstream party refuses any collaboration with the RRP and portrays the RRP as undemocratic (i.e., a delegitimizing strategy). Second, a scenario in which the mainstream party does not refuse to collaborate with the RRP and portrays the RRP as democratic (i.e., a legitimizing strategy). To test my hypotheses, I implemented a survey experiment (N=2,079) in Germany – a country that allowed me to credibly manipulate mainstream right’s responses to their radical right challenger. Using mock newspaper articles, participants were either exposed to CDU-sponsored delegitimizing or to legitimizing messages targeting the ‘Alternative für Deutschland’ (AfD). The results of this study will contribute to debates around the determinants of citizens’ evaluations of RRPs and the impact of mainstream parties’ strategies on the success and failure of new, radical challenger parties more generally.